A D : ad destructum
by Lena Ban Obsidian
Summary: Schwarz on a summer day, far from the worries of Japan and its incipient assassins.


after destruction  
( Say 'Ah!' )  
  
Lena

Notes: You gotta see the picture that goes with this. XD Zazie started drawing, and said, 'I wonder *why* they're doing this...?' 

Famous last words, baby. Famous last words. 

* * *

Bradley Crawford was a man of precise principle. His business suits, a carefully measured shade of cream, spoke of tidiness, of both an attempt to care for fashion and an inability to actually succeed in doing so. His hair, an artfully arranged part of his body that spoke of his slightly unruly inner character, was slicked back into perfection, with strategically placed locks of hair that fell free, hanging before his eyes. His glasses were neither the 'stylish' granny-specs of America's teens, nor the coke-bottle horrors that the elderly of any country seem to adore. During business hours, and technically after them, there was nothing but a subtle smirk and the flash of glasses to warn that Crawford, as a person, even existed. He acted simply as a tool for those who thought themselves his master. 

That had all sort of changed after the Ani Museum had come crashing down. 

Now, Weiss could believe whatever the hell they wanted. They could even, if they'd survived completely intact, pretend that they'd _won_ that little conflict, because Crawford didn't care. Now the only people who know about the existence of Schwarz were the banks who held onto the money that so many years of planning had earned himself and his business partners. 

He'd obviously planned to take out the leaders of Este, destroying _that_ hocus-pocus organization effectively at its core. But less visible to the naked eye was the simple and elegant plan he'd made for Schwarz's escape from any possible 'fame'. It wasn't like they couldn't have handled whatever meager pursuit Weiss might have given, but he was done with annoyances. He'd fixed everything so that Schwarz could be free of affiliation, and irritants. 

That meant that, when Weiss and Schwarz had begun to seem evenly matched, he'd given Nagi the signal-- via Schuldig's weakening mental link-- to rip the building down around them. Weiss had tumbled amongst the rubble and been lost to his Sight, in both the physical and metaphysical sense. Schwarz, caught by Nagi's protective telekinetic bubble, had been transported halfway to the short before being dropped into the sea. From there it was a deviously re-mastered version of history, of which he was still proud. 

They were currently living in Spain. 

Nagi had been the only one averse to leaving Japan, perhaps because he retained some odd notion of loyalty to his homeland. From a theoretic point of view, Crawford could understand and even (sort of) admire that loyalty and the strange concept of 'honor' peculiar to Nagi's way of thinking. From a more real-world perspective, that was just too bad. Schuldig and Farfarello had noogied the telekinetic into agreement that Spain was, indeed, the place to be for the summer, so here they were. 

There were a few things about being free of affiliation that he truly enjoyed. Schuldig's mental connection was completely unhindered-- nobody was monitoring them-- and they didn't have to speak aloud to communicate. Farfarello, in particular, had been grateful for that much, in those weeks of recovery when it hadn't been wise to use his voice overmuch. His own Sight, long since accepted by the rest of Schwarz, didn't have to be restricted to seem as though he experienced time in the way ordinary people did. 

And Nagi could do whatever he wished, a freedom Nagi had always cherished. 

There were beaches, music, nightclubs, and vast open land available to them as playground. When Crawford had told the Weiss that Schwarz's dream was chaos, it had admittedly been a bit of an untruth. He'd meant 'chaos' in the sense that it would follow in Schwarz's wake, a tangible reminder of their presence both in and out of society. All four of them enjoying playing with the 'rules' set by ordinary mankind; he saw no reason for Farfarello to waste valuable time cleaning up after a kill when there was little to no chance that anyone would ever get _near_ Schwarz, let alone even realize that Schwarz could be responsible in the first place. 

It was like paradise; Schuldig's telepathy had allowed them to gradually acclimatize to the words spoken around them, until the language was familiar enough that they felt comfortable speaking it aloud. 

The day found them at a beachside restaurant. Heat wave was terrorizing the globe, the temperature in the high nineties and not showing any inclination to go back down again. Several days spent outdoors had bronzed Schuldig's skin, and his own. Nagi and Farfarello, almost comically pale by comparison, had learned the hard way the importance of sunscreen. He arced an eyebrow at Nagi while the boy stared drowsily down at the shore, as if contemplating the safety of the water. 

"What do you want?" 

Not missing a beat, the boy sighed. "Can we eat? I'm starving." 

"I'll flag him down," he agreed meditatively, sitting up to look over his shoulder. 

"Well, let's find the waiter," Nagi murmured, slouching forward to cup his face in his hands, trying to cover a yawn. Azure eyes flitted over those forms laying about on the beach, until they came to rest on Farfarello's distinctive hair, far out in the waves. Schuldig's bright red mop was only slightly less of a beacon, and mostly because their German comrade was lying on his stomach, trying to further develop his tan. 

"You do that," he murmured, catching one waiter's eye. 

"I'll call Schuldig and Farfarello." 

_We're going to order something to eat,_ Nagi sent silently, eyes glazing slightly, as though he'd lost himself in dreamy contemplation. The waiter, an unruly but eager looking young man, approached them; Crawford sat up straighter in his chair. 

"Yes?" 

"My friends and I would like to order some lunch." 

Brushing a few stray locks of deep auburn hair from his eyes, the waiter nodded and grabbed up his pen, his pad of paper. "Yes, of course, sir." 

_What kind of something?_ came Schuldig's slightly irritated response. _It's bloody hot out here. Do they have anything cold?_

_Get in the sea,_ came Farfarello's unimpressed thought. _and you will be cold. I want crab. Do they have crab?_

"There are four of us. We'd like some crab to share, and a salad." The waiter nodded, scribbled something on his pad. Schuldig sent an image of cool drink-- foaming, amber ale-- and Crawford ignored it. "I'd like water to drink." 

Nagi shifted. "Do you have any fruit juice?" 

A nod from the waiter. "Yes, sir; orange, apple, and lemon." 

"Lemon." 

"And your other friends...?" Looking about for said missing persons (as it were) the waiter blinked once, twice, and his eyes glazed of a sudden, his pen moving over the paper to mark an order for one ale and one water. He left them where they sat in the semi-shade of the ramada, as if he'd never asked the question. 

Down the beach, Schuldig stood and stretched. Farfarello was wading in to shore, his alabaster skin shining with wet. Curious eyes watched him join Schuldig, and then suddenly slid away, his existence forgotten. Grinning over his shoulder in Crawford's direction, the redhead ambled back through the sand towards the restaurant, gait languid and lethargic. Farfarello followed in a meditative seeming silence, but Crawford got the feeling that the two were conversing deeply. 

Leaning back to stretch in his chair, Nagi cast a curious eye at Crawford. 

"There's no one to impress," he answered neutrally. 

"Why are you so calm, now? Normally using our powers this openly would have you in a fit." A slow, hot wind breathed across the shore, tossing Schuldig's hair and probably tangling it. He swept a hand through it and smiled as if nothing in the world could have dampened his mood. Looking up as if he hadn't noticed them before, Farfarello ventured a strangely ordinary grin. It was just a slight twitch of lips, and somehow softened him until he looked more like any ordinary teenager. 

Crawford shook his head faintly, amused. Occasionally it was difficult to remember that the vast age difference between members of Schwarz existed. "Why crab?" He stood from his own seat and offered it to Schuldig, moving to one of the chairs sitting in the open sun. Nagi did the same for Farfarello, without comment, and looked over his shoulder at the sea almost wistfully. 

"...I like crab," he answered, as if that explained everything. With their minds in contact, it nearly did; he could sense the craving, was beginning to share it. The need for food was strongest on Nagi's side of things; the telekinesis burned away energy twice as fast as ordinary physical labor. Consequently, Nagi was the victim of an almost constant sweet tooth as a result. 

Their drinks arrived and their waiter whisked himself away without comment. Schuldig nursed the ale and said nothing, mentally or verbally, for a long while. Silence was nothing new, but calm was a sensation they'd all begun to take pleasure in. Working for Este had never been easy, and never been guaranteed protection against the more mundane threats that had challenged them back then. Schwarz had its share of little horror stories. 

Farfarello scratched idly at the side of his nose. "...you could go swimming," he murmured softly to Nagi, curious about the boy's apparent interest. Shaking his head and turning back to the table, the telekinetic applied himself to his drink; within seconds, half of the juice was gone. 

"I keep wondering if they survived or not," he admitted, eyes downcast, hazed by thought and curiosity. "...they were entertaining." 

Schuldig laughed dryly. "_You_ didn't have to let one of them wrap a wire around your neck." Farfarello refrained from comment; it hadn't _hurt_ him to fight the kittens, but letting one's body recover after such battles was simply a nuisance, no matter which way you looked at it. Knowing that as he did, Nagi simply shrugged. It wasn't that he cared much. The question occasionally tickled at the back of his mind. 

"If you like," Crawford agreed amiably, sipping at his water. 

"Could we _please_ buy some ice cream or something?" Schuldig complained, a smirk on his face for the answer. "You know, I always wondered why you insist we bother asking the questions if you know them before we say them." 

"I can't predict something that doesn't happen," he countered, speaking in 'real time' and regaining, for a moment, that edge of cold ruthlessness that had defined who he was, once upon a time. "Otherwise I get paradox headaches. Double predictions." 

Nagi shrugged, finished off his juice and glared half-heartedly into his glass, as if willing it to fill again. "...makes sense," he offered, in that subdued voice of his. "Ice cream would be nice. Do they sell it here?" 

"There was a man, away down the beach," Farfarello began, sitting up and stretching back to look for the person in question. Schuldig clapped a friendly hand on his shoulder, and shook his head. _I found him. He's headed this way, you don't have to get up._ Amber eye flashing to the hand on his shoulder in semi-suspicion, the Irishman nodded and rearranged himself in his chair until he was more comfortable, drumming restless fingers on his stomach. 

They sat half in light, half in shadow, waiting for the vendor to reach them, and spoke amongst themselves in mind-whispers, sometimes falling 'silent' altogether. Schuldig lazily put forth queries that Crawford answered several seconds early; the weather for the next week, the lottery numbers, the next victim that Farfarello would tear from the flock of sheep that was the world around them. He'd never tired of asking such mundane questions, over the years, and was only fortunate that Crawford regarded it as practice in accuracy. Events over which Schwarz had no control were extremely difficult to predict correctly, because the effect of other persons on those events often remained imperceptible to him until the events themselves. 

It might not have seemed to an ordinary person that the entire world, right down to vast things like the weather, and games of chance, like the lottery, was interconnected. There was, truthfully, a small element of chance to the drawing of lottery numbers, but intangible forces, the will to win of one person, or the need of another, had noticeable effect on the future. Years of experience had only begun to teach Crawford how to see past all of the infinite possibilities that would _not_ be, and find the true future; he'd showed Schuldig what it was like, once, and had managed, somehow, to shake that calm cool facade that the German always wore. 

So Schuldig had gotten into the habit of asking him seemingly mundane questions, because it was always novel to him. There were different reasons for the answers every time; different factors, different invisible forces that changed the outcome until it was the clearest one he Saw, the one that overrode all the other possibilities. 

"Hello, hello, gentlemen! Would you perhaps be interested in some sweet milk Popsicles? I sell them, for you, at two for a peso. What do you say to that?" The vendor had appeared without any of them noticing he was there; his face was ancient, and soft, lined with the gentle wrinkles of a grandfather's smile. A bushy mustache hid his lips, his cap keeping his unruly hair in check. Nagi sat up a little straighter at the mention of sweets and glanced to Crawford for confirmation. 

He in turn looked at Schuldig, who shrugged. "What flavors do you have?" He inquired, nasal voice exceptionally polite, all things considered. The gray-haired man smiled and opened the icebox he was carrying; there were only five Popsicles left. At the very least, he seemed to have been busy; in spite of himself, Crawford was feeling a pang of regret that such a man had to work in this disgusting _heat_. Snagging the only strawberry confection for himself, he cocked his head at the rest of Schwarz. "Help yourself. I'll pay." 

His wallet, thick with hard cash, was as steady a presence in his back pocket as the weight of his gun was when he wore his business coat. Thumbing out four times the money that the man had asked for, he offered it, almond eyes deceptively blank. The vendor made to protest, and then shrugged. "And for all this, only four Popsicles?" He laughed, shaking his head at Bradley Crawford as if the Oracle was his own flesh and blood. "You make a bad man out of me," he admonished. 

"I am paying you to eat the last one and enjoy your day," Crawford replied, tone entirely reasonable. There might have been a faint, conspiring smile on his lips, but it was hard to tell. Pulling his chin down to his chest, as if eyeing the money, the man cocked an eyebrow, pursed his lips in appraisal, and then laughed, shaking his head again, taking the money and waving at them as if to shoo them away. 

Pocketing the money-- still not much, but enough for a nice lunch, certainly-- he started away, grinning back over his shoulder. "A good day to you, sirs." 

Unwrapping the soggy paper from his own treat, he glanced up at the others to see first, if they were going to comment on his act of charity, and second, whether the waiter was back with the crab yet. 

Schwarz seemed to understand; or they didn't care. Farfarello was leveling an annoyed look on his redheaded companion, who'd snagged the only grape-flavored Popsicle. _You did that on purpose,_ he accused mentally; aloud, he sighed and started in on his own, a shocking lime-green concoction. Nagi watched both with a hint of amusement and disdain in his blue eyes, already applying himself to his own Popsicle, as if he were going to swallow it in one bite. 

_Well, I know grape's your favorite, liebe, so I wanted to try it,_ Schuldig replied, all tease, a grin on his lips. _I'll let you have a taste, if you want. Say 'ah~'_

_...all right, fine._

The waiter returned in the midst of it all, set down their meal and four plates, and whisked himself away. Between the soft breeze rolling up from the sea, the smell of the crab and the heat of the sun on their faces, it was paradise. Farfarello and Schuldig moved close enough to share the grape treat, the younger leaning in, mouth open to catch the ice, childlike in his lack of inhibition. Crawford shook his head, grabbed up a paddle and began fanning himself, Popsicle in his mouth, eyes on the sea, the picture of contemplation. 

It wasn't exactly what he'd had in mind when he'd started planning for their breakaway. Frankly, he was surprised that he could be satisfied by doing things as simple as this; it was not typical for Bradley Crawford to be surprised, relaxed, or any other of those emotions that fell outside of the spectrum he liked to call 'business-like'. 

He'd told the truth, though. There was nobody to impress anymore. 

"I'm for it." 

"Want to go swimming?" Schuldig asked over his shoulder, holding the popsicle to which Farfarello was attached like a favored toy belonging to some exceptionally tall dog. Teasingly, he started to pull away; the single amber eye narrowed at him, and Farfarello bit off the larger half of the treat. _Oi! You damned well better share, Jei..._

While Farfarello chewed the flavored ice, Nagi considered, head tilted at a curious angle. "...I suppose it could be fun," he finally answered, voice amiably neutral. The lime popsicle was transferred from Jei's hands to Schuldig's, and the Irishman turned his attention to the crab, not bothering to speak aloud. 

_Swimming is good._

Nodding, Schuldig accepted the green treat, popping it in his mouth to free up his hands; he divided out the food before speaking again, a subtle wave of genuine curiosity in his mental tone. _This is a stupid question, but..._

_Yes. I don't mind._

_Can we stay here for a while? It's nice._

~End~ 

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